BATON ROUGE - After opening up the spring season with a pair of runner-up finishes in three tournament appearances, the 15th-ranked LSU men's golf team will look to defend its championship at the Argent Financial Classic while teeing off in Monday's first round at Squire Creek Country Club in Choudrant, La.

The Tigers will compete as part of an 11-team field in this year's event as Monday's action features 36 holes with a shotgun start scheduled for 8 a.m. CT. Tee times for Tuesday's final round will begin at 8 a.m. on both the front nine and back nine. The course will play to a par 72 and 7,105 yards for the championship.

LSU returns to the site of one of its three tournament victories a year ago when it scored a seven-shot victory over the homestanding Louisiana Tech Bulldogs at the Argent Financial Classic in 2012.

The Tigers were the only team in the nine-team field to break par for the championship a season ago as they fired a winning 54-hole score of 4-under par 860 to take the title by seven strokes over the 3-over par 867 posted by the Bulldogs for second place. Middle Tennessee State finished well back in third place at 6-over par 870.

The Tigers enter the championship ranked as high as No. 15 nationally in the latest Golfstat Top 25 power ranking released on Wednesday of last week.

They will defend their crown against the 11-team field that also features 32nd-ranked North Texas, Arkansas-Little Rock, Central Arkansas, Jacksonville State, Louisiana Tech, Louisiana-Lafayette, McNeese State, Missouri State, Southern Mississippi and Texas State. LSU is paired with Louisiana Tech and North Texas in Monday's first-round and second-round action.

Two Tigers return from the winning lineup a season ago as junior Andrew Presley and sophomore Stewart Jolly are set to make their eighth tournament start for the squad this year.

Presley, who tied for sixth place with a score of 2-under par 214 at the 2012 Argent Financial Classic, is LSU's leading scorer with a 73.0 scoring average for the campaign with two top-five and three top-10 finishes in his seven starts on the campaign. Jolly follows Presley with an average of 73.1 strokes per round and a team-leading four top-10 finishes on the year, including a tie for seventh place on the final leaderboard with his performance at the Louisiana Classics one week ago.

Freshman standout Zach Wright is fresh off his first collegiate victory at the Louisiana Classics as he fired a career-low tournament score of 7-under par 209 while playing as an individual. Wright recorded a career-best 6-under par 66 in the opening round en route to his victory as he became the fourth different LSU Tiger to win an individual title this year.

Rounding out LSU's starting lineup are sophomores Curtis Thompson and Myles Lewis, who rank third and fourth on the squad with their 73.2 and 74.6 scoring averages, respectively.

After defending their team championship at the Argent Financial Classic this week, the Tigers will make their annual trip to Awendaw, S.C., for March 24-26 with their appearance at the Hootie at Bulls Bay Intercollegiate being held at Bulls Bay Golf Club. They will then wrap up the regular season on April 6-7 at the Aggie Invitational being held at Traditions Golf Club in College Station, Texas.